Firm said the facility will ‘not depend on the national grid for power’
Stock image
Plans are to be lodged in the coming days for a large-scale data-centre campus on a site outside Naas in Co Kildare.
Herbata Ltd has given notice that it is to lodge an application with Kildare County Council for a campus that will comprise six two-storey dat-centre buildings at Jigginstown, Halverstown, and Newhall, Naas, on lands bound to the east by the M7 Business Park.
The published planning notice states that five buildings will accommodate a 19 metre-high data hall encompassing 24,756 sqm. A sixth building will also have a data-centre hall of the same proportions.
The application includes infrastructure for district heating such as gas turbines, gas engine and battery energy-storage systems. It includes solar panels covering an area of 3,600sqm, which are to be installed on the roof of each data centre.
In a statement on Thursday, Herbata Ltd confirmed it is applying for planning permission “for a next-generation data centre campus which will, uniquely, not depend on the national grid for power”.
The company – based at Millennium Park, Naas – stated the project “is designed to minimise energy consumption and promote decarbonisation”.
The planning notice states the project has two main elements – the data centre and a substation which will comprise a new 110 kV Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) sub-station and the under grounding of an existing 110 KV transmission line.
The sub-station will be the subject of a separate planning application to An Bord Pleanála, but an Environmental Impact Assessment report will be lodged with Kildare Co Council as part of that application.
The Jigginstown area has been zoned for data-centre development by the council. Already, tech giant Microsoft has confirmed it is drawing up its own plans for a data-centre project in this locality, but the application for planning permission has yet to be lodged.
A spokeswoman for Microsoft said the company is “still in the early stages of developing plans for a data centre campus near Jigginstown” and could not say when an application will be lodged.
Tech companies here have raised concerns over restrictions placed on new data centres three years ago, amid growing concerns about the amount of electricity they are using and the strain they put on the national grid. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities is expected to publish a new policy on connecting large energy users such as data centres to the national grid by the end of the summer.
